Ask me (union ironworker) your questions about 9/11

hello people, I am relatively new to this site, and really love it! anyways, i am a union Ironworker by trade, and was just going to say; if my opinion matters to anyone... you can ask me your questions about these so-called "structural failures" of the trade centers!


[edit on 27-9-2006 by UM_Gazz]

Tell us your opinion of the collapse. Do you believe it was due to the structural damage from the aircraft or fire, or something else?

What cause molten iron and fire to persist after weeks of the towers collapsed? Can jet fuel melt steel?

What do you know of metallurgy, and do you agree with the thermite ignited via plastique composition 4?

How did the core of the wtc buildings also collapse.Both buildings just pancaked,is that actually possible for both towers to fall straight down,core and all?I am still undecided on what to believe.

Originally posted by crowpruitt
How did the core of the wtc buildings also collapse.Both buildings just pancaked,is that actually possible for both towers to fall straight down,core and all?I am still undecided on what to believe.

exactly! it seems the new hotbutton topic around the threads is the core.

if the fire was only spread across a few floors, how could it be possible for the steel many floors below to structuraly fail? and into so many relativly small pieces? and twice?

wouldn't just the processes of the steel struggling not to fail absorb some of the load, inturn slowing the speed of collapse? or at least fail unevenly enough to cause the building to topple to a side? (if it was not a planned incident)

[edit on 9/27/2006 by bokinsmowl]

*edit because i think im funny, but im not.

[edit on 9/27/2006 by bokinsmowl]

Originally posted by whatwilludo
hello people, I am relatively new to this site, and really love it!

Good to see another metalworker here on ATS,i`m a sheetmetal worker by trade and worked as a boilermaker for a few years myself.

anyways, i am a union Ironworker by trade, and was just going to say; if my opinion matters to anyone... you can ask me your questions about these so-called "structural failures" of the trade centers.

What relevance is belonging to a union to your trade,does that give you higher qualifications in the states or something?

Did you have any direct experience with the clean up of the WTC?

If not,I can`t see how you would be able to answer the real hard questions that need answering.Such as the use of thermite or not.

What relevance is belonging to a union to your trade,does that give you higher qualifications in the states or something?

any help is help... he probobly knows more than i do about metal so his input is welcome and appreciated.

my dad always said a (good) weld was stronger than the thing being welded.

in other words, a GOOD weld(which really ought to be done by most welders, most of the time, or we'd have VERY large scale problems... over a century later, and steel buildings and bridges aren't just 'collapsing' because of poor welding) should not be the first failure point.

do you agree or disagree with this?

there were a number of beams(8?, 10?) in the cores of the towers that were welded continuously from bottom to top.
would these beams(the 'core' of the core) act as is they were a single beam, in your opinion?

Originally posted by billybob
my dad always said a (good) weld was stronger than the thing being welded.

in other words, a GOOD weld should not be the first failure point.
do you agree or disagree with this?

Any join(weld) is usually the weakest point,if the weld does`nt fail the heat affected area around the weld will most times,depending on the quality of weld and the quality of the metal used.It will usually tear before a continuous beam,pipe etc.

Because of this,is why a lifting lug (by Australian standards) that is welded to a large object is split on the bottom so two welds not one continuous weld is required,in case one tears or fails.

Not sure about your core questions,nowadays where high quality welds are required xrays will be performed and i`m not sure if that would have been available at the time of building the WTC?

Maybe the OP will have some more input to it.





[edit on 28-9-2006 by gps777]

Originally posted by gps777
Any join(weld) is usually the weakest point,if the weld does`nt fail the heat affected area around the weld will most times,depending on the quality of weld and the quality of the metal used.It will usually tear before a continuous beam,pipe etc.

Because of this,is why a lifting lug (by Australian standards) that is welded to a large object is split on the bottom so two welds not one continuous weld is required,in case one tears or fails.

Not sure about your core questions,nowadays where high quality welds are required xrays will be performed and i`m not sure if that would have been available at the time of building the WTC?

Maybe the OP will have some more input to it.

x-ray?
what's the difference in the information gleaned from an xray vs. that gleaned from an ultrasound?
what would make an inspector choose one over the other?



more input would be cool.

Originally posted by billybob
my dad always said a (good) weld was stronger than the thing being welded.

Not entirely correct. I am also in the career field of metal working. Steel produced in a mill has a general grain pattern like a stick of wood. Any piece of steel is stronger at a right angle than parallel to the grain pattern by a measureable amount. A weld does not orient the grain structure within the weld, so all things being equal in the filler used for the weld, and as long as the penetration is adequate, the welded material will actually be slightly weaker in shear strength than the components joined due to the lack of uniformity of grain structure.

The above poster is also correct. When welding, a certain amount of heat is transferred in a close proximity to the weld and causes a slight weakness in the surrounding area, causing the original material to be a little harder at the edges of a weld. It is like heat treating that material on a very tiny scale, which is why under stress, cracks usually appear on weldments between an edge of a weld and the material welded, and not normally in the smack dab center of a weld.

As far as the trusses go, and maybe the core, they were also bolted, which probably is a design feature that makes up for the weakness in shear strength at the connection. A few grade 8 bolts where it connects is more than adequate to make up for the this. Of course the core vertical beams only had to consider compressive strength which I really know nothing about so far as the sizes of the beams needed to support the total weight.

If you look at the 911 mysteries video it shows the last bit of the core standing and then it drops. Something had to actually have enough shear strength to cut through a box beam made of 4" thick weldments to make it drop straight down. I can't think of anything that could have made that final structure to fall except for one thing - it already was sheared at its base. It was fully capable of supporting itself.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by ben91069]

ben91069

If you look at the 911 mysteries video it shows the last bit of the core standing and then it drops. Something had to actually have enough shear strength to cut through a box beam made of 4" thick weldments to make it drop straight down. I can't think of anything that could have made that final structure to fall except for one thing - IT ALREADY WAS SHEARED AT IT'S BASE. It was fully capable of SUPPORTING ITSELF.

That's an amazing statement Ben.

I believe the base of the buildings were severed first for many reasons. Alot of people here can't understand why the building collapsed from the 'top' down if the base was severed first. To me that is an easy question when you consider how the building was constructed. If the core just mysteriously 'disappeared' the outer perimeter, I believe, could have supported itself and stood on it's own. With that in mind imagine the core 'falling inside the tube' after being severed pulling the outer perimeter of the building 'in' as it fell. All I know is I just can't rationalize how the building fell the way it did unless it was a CD. The core of the buildings were just too strong to allow for such a collapse. I could see a partial collapse, maybe some of the top of the building falling away, some floors collapsing around the core like a spindal, but how on earth did the CORE just collapse? Again I ask WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CORE? Of course I think an even better question we should be asking is this: How did the real perpetrators of 911 get away with it? and how are they STILL getting away with it!

What does your job involve and how does it relate to 911?

This thread smells like a fishing expedition...

Lets not turn this into a rehash of so many other threads. Many of you who have posted need to go read and research a little about the collpase, and hte events leading up to it. Open you horizons and watch a video other than loose change or something similar. It was not a 'few floors' that were burning, sowatch raw footage and not the edited to agenda baloney. That said, A few questions though since you are asking


1. How long have you been an iron worker?
2. Where?
3. Largest project?
4. What is your reasoning to suddenly want to answer all these questions?


I think your right Slaps

[edit on 28-9-2006 by esdad71]

I have really steered clear of this whole thing for a long time. Although I have picked up bits and pieces along the way I have never heard anyone theorize that terrorists on the ground could have entered the buildings with explosives.

There are several possible scenarios of terrorists being in the buildings with explosives and detonating them after the plane strikes. This in my mind is much more believable than the explosives being built into the structures.

Is there any reference discussing this possibility?

Originally posted by jbondo
Is there any reference discussing this possibility?

Yes, off-topic but has been discussed elsewhere, and doesn't fit with how the collapses behaved. Any pancake-style collapse would have slowed down, while these collapses did not, and steel structures don't even pancake anyway, which seems to indicate explosives from top to bottom, even if in intervals of every other floor or whatever. That would explain the refusal of the collapses to slow, even as most of the mass was ejected outwards with great force from floor to floor. That would also take a lot of Muslims running into the buildings with a lot of explosives strapped to them or whatever. It also would have had to have been timed almost perfectly, instead of just ripping them when and wherever, to make the exterior (perimeter) collapses perform top-down. Also doesn't explain why FEMA and NIST would try to cover it up. In general, it would have been too sophisticated to pull off in such a short amount of time, and if Muslims went through all the trouble, you'd think you'd have heard something from them about it by now, rather than dubious tapes of Bin Laden not being able to make up his mind on whether or not he even had anything to do with it.

So what you're saying is that explosives couldn't have been planted on each floor weeks prior to the plane strikes and then detonated remotely? And possibly a cargo van filled to the brim on top of everything else?

I can see where it would be quite an undertaking but not impossible.

Ahh forget it! I don't even want to drag myself into this thing. I've stayed out of it this long to avoid obsessing, so I'm gonna cut my losses right now.

Bin Laden did not mastermind 9/11, but he is the most recognizable figurehead. Therefore, when he stated he did not create the idea, he was correct, however he did have a hand in approving when the operation would move forward. That is what is expressed in the other tape. Word games for cave dwellers.

So, is this guy coming back???